LONDON: Arsenal moved into the Premier League top four as two goals in three minutes saw off Sheffield United 2-1, while Leicester’s perfect start came to a shuddering halt with a 3-0 defeat at home to West Ham.
Liverpool can now leapfrog Leicester to move joint top of the table alongside Merseyside rivals Everton if they win at Aston Villa later on Sunday, while Jose Mourinho takes his Tottenham team to Old Trafford hoping to exact revenge on Manchester United for his sacking nearly two years ago.
Arsenal have taken nine points from their opening four games as they look to return to Champions League football for the first time in five years next season.
But the Gunners were fortunate to take all three points at the Emirates as they had an early escape when David Luiz escaped a red card for a pull on Oli Burke.
Mikel Arteta’s men got going after the break and a fine team move opened the scoring on the hour mark when Bukayo Saka headed home Hector Bellerin’s cross at the far post.
Bellerin was the provider again moments later as Nicolas Pepe drove forward to curl the ball in off the far post.
David McGoldrick halved the deficit seven minutes from time with the Blades first league goal of the season, but they remain without a point.
Moyes working well from home Arsenal are now level on points with Leicester as the Foxes suffered a huge fall from grace just a week on from thrashing Manchester City 5-2. West Ham manager David Moyes was again taking charge from home after testing positive for coronavirus.
But just as in a 4-0 win over Wolves last weekend, the Hammers did not miss his presence as goals from Michail Antonio, Pablo Fornals and Jarrod Bowen gave the visitors a full deserved three points.
“I’m feeling generally fine but I have had some mild symptoms so we are taking it day by day and following the advice of the medical experts,” Moyes told West Ham’s website.
Antonio’s presence was too much for Leicester to handle and he opened the scoring with a header at the far post from Aaron Cresswell’s pin-point cross.
West Ham doubled their lead in style nine minutes before half-time when Fornals cushioned Cresswell’s long punt perfectly into his path before slotting past Kasper Schmeichel for his first goal since February.
Leicester failed to muster a single shot on target and with seven minutes left, Bowen slotted home from Fornals’ pass.
At St Mary’s, Southampton won their second successive game by seeing off lowly West Brom 2-0.
Wolves bounced back from their thrashing at West Ham as Pedro Neto’s clean strike into the bottom corner was enough to beat Fulham 1-0 at Molineux. — AFP
EPL results on Sunday:
Leicester 0 West Ham 3 (Antonio 14, Fornals 34, Bowen 83)
Southampton 2 (Djenepo 41, Romeu 69) West Brom 0
Arsenal 2 (Saka 61, Pepe 64) Sheffield United 1 (McGoldrick 83)
Wolves 1 (Neto 56) Fulham 0
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